SMTown Live World Tour III

SMTown Live World Tour III is the 2012 world-wide live concert tour by SM Town. The tour commenced with one show in Anaheim, California on May 20, 2012 and will continue on in Hsinchiu, Tokyo, Seoul and Jakarta. Then it will be followed by Singapore and Bangkok. The opening video during May 20 concert in Anaheim also hinted possible future dates in Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Background

SM Town is the name for the artists under Korean record label SM Entertainment. Each year the company organizes their artists to come together and perform on a four to six hours long concert that tours around the world.The concert takes approximately 96 hours to set up, with equipment coming from multiple countries across Asia including South Korea, Taiwan, US, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. The show’s total production value is estimated at USD$5 million, with half being spent on pyrotechnics and staging alone.

The concert in Taiwan was played to an audience of 30,000 and lasted for more than four hours with over 50 songs by BoA, Kangta, TVXQ, Super Junior, f(x), Girls’ Generation, SHINee, Zhang Li Yin, EXO; and sub-groups Super Junior-M and TaeTiSeo.The artists were greeted by over 1,000 fans when they flew into Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on the Friday prior to the concert.The two concerts held at the Tokyo Dome in August attracted an audience of over 100,000 people and the demand outstrip supply by six-to-one. The Tokyo Dome dates will be broadcast in Japan via Fuji TV.

The concert at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia attracted over 50,000 people, becoming the largest concert ever to be played at the stadium. The artists were greeted by over 3,500 fans when they arrived in Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on 21 September 2012, one day before the concert. Super Junior leader Leeteuk was unable to perform during the concert due to exhaustion and enteritis, for which he made an apology the following day via his Twitter account.Sulli of f(x) and Minho of SHINee were not at the Seoul Concert as they were filming for their drama, ‘To the Beautiful you’.

Reception

John Seabrook, a journalist from The New Yorker who attended the concert in Anaheim, California, wrote: “Occasionally, the concert seemed like a giant pep rally. But at its best it elicited primal pop emotions that only a few of the greatest pop artists—the Beach Boys, the early Beatles, Phil Spector’s girl groups—can evoke: the feeling of pure love.”

C Because of Minho’s absence from SHINee, EXO-M’s Luhan filled in for him as a guest dancer during SHINee’s performance of “Lucifer” while EXO-K’s Sehun filled in during SHINee’s performance of “Love Like Oxygen”.

B Minho and Sulli were both absent due to the filming schedule of their drama To the Beautiful You.

C Because of Minho’s absence from SHINee, EXO-M’s Luhan filled in for him as a guest dancer during SHINee’s performance of “Lucifer” while EXO-K’s Sehun filled in during SHINee’s performance of “Love Like Oxygen”.

E Because of Choi Minho‘s absence from SHINee, EXO-M’s Luhan filled in for him as a guest dancer during SHINee’s performance of “Lucifer” while EXO-K’s Sehun filled in during SHINee’s performance of “Love Like Oxygen”.